Strada a Saintes-Maries

In early June 1888 Van Gogh took a few days away from Arles and rode out to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a fishing village on the Mediterranean. It was his first real sight of that sea. He was only a few months into his time in the south, and the colour of Provence was pushing his palette brighter by the week. He wrote to his brother Theo about how the sea and the light were changing what he wanted to paint. This quiet street, with its low thatched roofs and smoking chimneys, was one of the things he brought home. The week on the coast gave him nine drawings and two paintings, most of them finished back in his studio at Arles.